


Dreams

by Elwen_of_the_hidden_valley



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Dreams, Gen, Helms Deep, Prophetic Dreams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-28 17:02:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6337645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elwen_of_the_hidden_valley/pseuds/Elwen_of_the_hidden_valley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This story was written in answer to a challenge to write an AU tale of Frodo at Helms Deep.</p>
<p>I raise a glass to Frodo and Bilbo Baggins.  Long may your love and sacrifice be remembered by new generations of readers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t own any of the characters or the main events. They all belong to JRR Tolkien and I am forever grateful that he put his dream on paper. I hope he will forgive me for tinkering about on the borders of his great work.

Bilbo closed his study door and reached up with the candlesnuffer to extinguish the hall chandelier. It was just as he put out the first flame that he heard Frodo’s voice . . . a soft whimper. Lifting his own candle once more, Bilbo tiptoed to his nephew’s bedroom door and listened more closely. He could hear Frodo murmuring and shifting in his bed, the murmurs growing clearer.

“No . . . there are too many . . . we will never win . . . horrible . . . blood . . . blood everywhere . . . why? So much death . . .No!” The last word was barely less than a scream and Bilbo almost dropped his candle in his hurry to get into the room.

Another scream met him as he all but fell through the door and he found Frodo fighting with covers that had entangled him as he thrashed in his dream. Finally managing to sit up, Frodo turned a wild face in the direction of the candle flame. Bilbo took a step forward and froze as the young lad began to scrabble backwards until he was pressed up against the headboard; eyes wide and his mouth beginning to stretch open around another scream. Before it could form, Bilbo spoke into the quivering silence.

“Frodo . . . Frodo lad. It’s alright. It’s just a dream.” He deliberately kept his voice soft and low as he moved steadily towards the bed, bringing his little pool of light closer and closer, familiar words and the soft glow of the candle easing away the darkness.

Frodo’s mouth closed and he swallowed hard, his face paling even further. Bilbo recognised the symptoms and rushed to slide a clean chamber pot onto the bed as his nephew doubled over and began retching. Hurriedly placing the candle on the bedside table, Bilbo supported him with an arm about the heaving shoulders and when the retching ceased, a little while later, Bilbo drew his nephew back to rest exhaustedly against his shoulder. The older hobbit produced his pocket-handkerchief and dabbed gently at Frodo’s face.

“Let me get you some water to rinse your mouth. Do you think you’ve finished, or would you like me to bring another chamber pot?”

“’m alright, Bilbo. Don’t need ‘nother,” Frodo murmured. His uncle arranged pillows behind him and hurried from the room with the used receptacle, deciding to bring a fresh one anyway. When he returned, with a clean pot, a jug of water and a cup, Frodo had drawn the covers up but was still shivering in his bed.

Settling the pot on the bed, within easy reach, Bilbo placed the water on the table and offered Frodo a cup. “Swill your mouth out lad and then just sip the rest slowly.” Bilbo paused long enough to ensure that his nephew was following instructions, then turned away and began to stir the fire in the hearth, adding more wood. 

“There now, lad. That will be warmer.” Bilbo perched on the edge of the bed, moving the chamber pot onto the floor but still within easy reach. He brought a hand to rest on his nephew’s brow, relieved to find no fever and more than a little surprised when Frodo leaned into his touch. It had been a good few years since the lad had done that. Bilbo changed position so that he was sitting next to his nephew, and put his arm about his shoulders again, growing more worried when Frodo settled himself against him at once, his face almost buried in his uncle’s waistcoat.

“Do you want to tell me about your nightmare?”

The dishevelled curls resting against his chest shook slowly. “No. Please. It’s too awful.”

A gentle hand soothed up and down Frodo’s arm. “Sometimes it helps to get rid of the dream if you talk about it.” His comment was met with no visible or audible response but he did not press, guessing that it would take the lad some time to marshal his thoughts and words.

“Bilbo . . . when . . . when you were at the Lonely Mountain, you said there was a battle.”

Unsure of the direction of Frodo’s thoughts, Bilbo tried to answer as best he could, although that particular event in his adventure was one he had no wish to recall too clearly. “Yes I was and a nasty bump on the head I got.”

“What was it like? Not the getting hit on the head bit . . . the battle. Was it . . . very horrible?” 

Bilbo could feel his nephew shudder. Although the old hobbit had told the tale of his journey to and adventures at the Lonely Mountain many times, he had always skimmed over that part. He had no wish to recall the scenes of carnage that had been caused by simple greed, and certainly no wish to inflict such images on others.

“Yes lad. It was. Now do you want to tell me why you’re asking that? It’s not the sort of thing that should be filling the head of a youngster like you.”

“I saw it . . . in my dream. But for some reason I felt as though . . . as though I were responsible in some way. They were all dying around me. Men and goblins . . . horrible goblins. They were huge and their blood . . . their blood, Bilbo, was black.” The last word was accompanied by a sob and Frodo clutched his uncle more closely.

Bilbo’s heart raced so fast that he was sure that Frodo’s head must be moving with the beat of it. Stupid, stupid old hobbit, Bilbo chided himself. Some guardian you turned out to be. Going and giving the lad nightmares with your silly tales. 

He sought frantically for some image to turn the lad away from goblins and blood. He could not deny the events of his story and yet he had to soften it a little. The lad needed to see some light . . . light . . . elves.

“Yes, Frodo my lad. It was a frightening sight, and yet the elves . . . Ah, now to see an elf fight . . . that is an amazing thing. They are so light and graceful that it becomes almost a dance. They are so nimble. Why I saw one . . .” Bilbo paused as the dark head leaned back to gaze up at him in confusion. 

“That’s right. There were elves, weren’t there?”

“Of course there were elves, lad. Tall and beautiful with fine bows, shining swords and long slender lances, flashing in the sunlight.”

Frodo blinked, his voice taking on a distant, singsong tone. “His sword was long, his lance was keen, his shining helm afar was seen.”

Bilbo smiled. “That’s right. I see you’ve been paying attention to your studies. Yes. They were just like Gil-galad.”

The bright blue eyes looked up at him once more. “But there were no elves in my dream. Well, only one. And only one dwarf. The rest were men, tall and proud atop high stone walls and their long blond hair whipped by the cold wind. And . . . and goblins. Hundreds and hundreds of goblins. In armour as black as the night around them and harsh voices that grated upon my soul and made me want to turn and run.” Frodo shivered once more and Bilbo drew him closer in the circle of his arms.

“It was only a dream lad. And anyway the men of Dale have dark hair and we fought on a mountainside, if you remember. Your mind took the silly tales of an old hobbit and spun a story of its own. Maybe you should stop eating cheese for your supper. It’s obvious it doesn’t sit right with you.”

“But why would I dream of such a battle, and so different from the one you always described. It was dreadful, Bilbo. The goblins wore heavy iron armour from head to toe, except for a large white hand painted on their chests. And they were so big. I had never imagined they were so huge.”

“Hush, lad. Imagination plays strange tricks and goodness knows you’ve a healthier imagination than most.” He tried a smile but Frodo would not be turned aside. 

“It felt real. I was so frightened. And it wasn’t like the storybook fights, where people get stabbed and fall over. It was horrible. The goblins were . . . they were hacking people’s arms off and ripping open their bodies with thick bladed knives so that I could see their insides. I wasn’t really there but I was bound up in their doom somehow. Those men, Bilbo . . . they knew it was hopeless, and yet they fought on for as long as they could. They were buying me time, I think. I do not understand it fully. How could I be responsible and yet not actually there, Bilbo?”

Bilbo halted the rising tremor in his nephew’s voice by drawing him into a tight hug. “Hush now Frodo. It was only a dream.” 

Only a dream? Like the other dreams Frodo sometimes had? Like the time he dreamed of Sam standing at his mother’s grave, and the next day Bell Gamgee had keeled over dead . . . as sudden as you please. Or the time that the lad had dreamed of his parents’ faces floating in water and two days later . . . Bilbo drew back from such reverie.

“It was only a dream, Frodo. Come on. Let’s go and get you a glass of warm milk and then you can sit with me by the fire in the study until you feel calm enough to go back to sleep.”

Surely this could not be one of those visions. How could his lad be involved in such carnage? Bilbo found himself fingering the gold ring in his pocket, evidence of his own unexpected adventure. But a glimpse of the tears still glistening in Frodo’s eyes brought that hand away from the smooth metal at once, to fumble instead for his nephew’s dressing gown.

“Thank you Bilbo.” Frodo allowed his uncle to help him into the dressing gown and then lead him to the study. Once through the study door Bilbo felt the shoulders encircled by his arm relax at once. Here was the world Frodo was familiar with. Here were the pillars of his everyday life. 

A fire glowed in the hearth and candles dotted the mantle and various pieces of furniture. Frodo had often chided his uncle, for Bilbo had a frightening habit of piling up books and papers in unsteady towers and then standing a candle atop them. The lad was always worried that Bag End would go up in flames one night, but Bilbo prided himself on never having knocked over a single taper. The very air was filled with books; musty with the scent of paper, ink and leather bindings, of lavender soap and Old Toby. It smelled of home and was as far away from the sight and stench of battle and goblins as it was possible to get.

Bilbo fussed about him, seating him in a chair by the fire and draping a warm rug over his legs. It was comforting and Frodo tucked up his feet and leaned his head into the deep padding of the chair back, eyelids beginning to droop as he stared into the fire. Noting his nephew’s relaxing features, Bilbo left for the kitchen to warm the promised milk. 

By the time he returned Frodo was deeply asleep in the chair and the old hobbit did not wake him, bringing in a quilt from his bed instead and wrapping it about the lad atop the blanket. It would do him no harm to sleep in a chair for one night. 

Watching the now peaceful face of his nephew, Bilbo lit his pipe. Frodo had always been an overly inquisitive lad. That was one of the reasons Bilbo had decided to adopt him; that and the fact that he was being overlooked far too often in that big warren called Brandy Hall. A brain like Frodo’s needed to be stretched or it found ways of stretching itself, as was evinced by the fair number of scrapes the lad had got into over the years. 

It had been one of Bilbo’s dreams that when he set off on his travels again, once Frodo was of age, he would persuade the lad to come with him. The younger hobbit showed a keen interest in the affairs of the world outside the Shire and was pleasant company on a long walk. It would be most enjoyable to retread the paths of his journey with Frodo at his side.

Esmeralda had tried to warn him that there was something slightly different and a little strange about Frodo but Bilbo had not understood the thrust of her comments at the time. Then Bilbo had found out about the dreams.

Frodo had told him about them one night, a few months after first coming to Bag End, when Bilbo had found him crying and upset, just as he had tonight. It seemed the lad had been plagued with visions of future events since before he could remember. Oh, there were the ordinary dreams of childhood but, once in a while, there were others. Bilbo had grown used to them over time and both now accepted them as being as much a part of Frodo as his wide blue eyes. And, until tonight, even those visions had not stalled his plans to ask his nephew to travel with him.

Frodo stirred in his chair and Bilbo held his breath, praying that the dream would not return and sighing when the lad settled once more. 

Suddenly, tonight, Bilbo no longer saw Frodo as a companion or nephew, but as a young hobbit who deserved a happy and carefree life. He had been looking at the relationship only from his own selfish standpoint. Not seeing the lad as an independent soul with needs of his own. Now the thought that this kind and gentle heart, that had given itself so freely to Bilbo, may be hurt in any way was more than the old adventurer could face. If Bilbo took Frodo from the safety of the Shire would tonight’s dark vision become reality? If Frodo stayed in the Shire would he be safe from it? 

Surely such an event could never happen here. What could possibly precipitate it and where did Frodo fit in? His fingers strayed to the ring. Now why did he keep doing that? It took a great deal of strength but Bilbo pulled his hand away and wrapped his fingers about the warm bowl of his pipe instead, taking one final draw of Old Toby. Then, straightening his shoulders and knocking his pipe out on the hearth, Bilbo blew the stem and bowl clear and set it upon the mantle. 

No. He would not ask Frodo to accompany him when he left the Shire. Bilbo would spend their remaining time together teaching Frodo to love his home and then perhaps, the lad would never stir beyond its borders after all. And tonight’s dream would remain only a dream. Hobbits were not made for such terrible things and Bilbo intended to protect his nephew from them if he possibly could. Even if it meant giving up his own dream to stop the other from being fulfilled.

He rose from his chair and paused to settle a small kiss upon Frodo’s brow before turning to his desk to continue his writing. He would sit up tonight in case the dream returned.

 

END


End file.
